by Opal Edgar
His voice was low and threatening. He was seething with outrage at being captured, him: the great vampire. He was just about ready to bite someone’s head off. I twisted my neck painfully towards him.
“I’m sorry I failed again …” I started.
Baas turned a vicious shade of purple, and I gulped the rest of my sentence. He didn’t hold back this time. He pulled his legs up. I curled, bracing myself. He kicked.
“Just shut up, all of you!” he barked.
I was crushed against Kemsit, and squashed her into Lil’Mon. He slid a good two metres until he collided with Elise. Bringing us all closer to Alpheus’s tank.
“’Tis not gentlemanly, Sir Baas, I am surprised at you,” Elise said, before blowing off some dirt that had fallen on her new green dress.
The Oracle ran to our side of the altar, wearing the expression of an angry matron. And bam: he slammed straight into some magical barrier. It rang like a gong as he was propelled backwards. He rubbed his cheekbone angrily as it turned a vivid red. I guess this was a fortified vacuum.
The ghost hovered closer and the Oracle threw him a disgusted look. Even he was uncomfortable in his company.
“Stop this nonsense,” the Oracle snarled at us.
“What do you care, goldy?” asked Kemsit.
The Oracle frowned and stretched his back, trying to regain some grandeur, but the face splat had destroyed all possible credibility.
“Don’t bait the fishstick: I want him as far away as possible,” I said.
“Fishstick!” Kemsit exclaimed.
“That’s what Merlin calls him,” I said, pointedly looking at the Oracle.
It was my last chance to turn him against Merlin. The Oracle turned grey, spluttering nonsensical syllables. He banged his fist on the barrier.
“I will teach you respect!” he yelled.
He reluctantly approached a crouching power thief. Tentatively, he pushed the thief’s shoulder with the tip of his golden shoe. Nothing happened. The thief was a stone statue.
Elise moved her fingers, bunching the leafy fabric of her dress, testing the ropes, pulling and wiggling. She couldn’t do more than that. Yet, she looked perfectly calm.
“You’re golem meat, all of you!” the Oracle threatened.
They were all going to get their minds and power sucked out of them, and here she was as composed as ever. Lil’Mon looked positively comfortable against her.
“I’d never realised how warm you were, it’s nice,” he told Elise. “We should hug more often.”
“No one is hugging Miss Pieterson!” Baas exploded.
“Hey! I’m talking to you, people!” the Oracle yelled back.
“Don’t get too comfortable, Little Monarch,” Elise said.
Rage shone in the Oracle’s eyes. Oh yeah, he didn’t like being ignored.
And Baas had reached a new level of fuming fury. He had a fit and took it out on me. I rammed into the others once again. Kemsit wrinkled her nose, Lil’Mon laughed like a kid on a ride and Elise merely sighed ... Until she hit into the aquarium. She muffled a squeak of pain. I was still 90 kilos of bone crushing weight: not something that should ever have been hurled at people.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Baas.” Kemsit grimaced. “Tosho really smells awful. And now I’m covered in zombie ooze.”
Embarrassment ripened my cheeks like berries.
“I’m sorry, because of me you’re all going to disappear!” I yelled.
The Oracle refused to be ignored any longer. He leaned against the invisible barrier and took a handful of the power thief’s cape. He lifted and shook. But that person was a machine and kept the chant up.
Kemsit tried to reassure me with an elbow pat. That was the only part of her that was free. She barely even shirked away from my stench. My throat closed up. I had failed them so badly.
“Stop all of that!” the Oracle yelled.
“Or what, fishstick?” Kemsit called out.
That’s when I noticed a potato bulging out of Lil’Mon’s pocket. All other thoughts vanished from my mind. My throat stopped burning. My eyes dried. The spud gleamed like treasure and I basked in its soft hypnotising glow. Drool rained on my hand. I needed it.
“Let. Me. In. THERE!” the Oracle shouted at the power thief.
I slid over Kemsit, hand outstretched towards the potato. She let out a howl of disgust, while the Oracle screamed in frustration. He smacked the head of the power thief and the hood fell off. She stopped chanting.
The world stopped too.
I looked up, mouth full. The power thief was a cute round faced brunette with a very foul mouth. The Oracle stumbled into the circle. With the barrier gone he had nothing to lean on. We stared. The power thieves all jumped up in collective outrage. Baas winked at the Oracle. He stood like an idiot realising he’d made a mistake. Each potato gave me strength.
The Oracle stepped backwards and hell broke loose.
Baas dissolved in smoke, leaving behind his shackles. The metal glint shone in the Oracle’s horror-struck eyes. Poof! Baas materialised at Elise’s side.
A flash of razor teeth.
She rose free from her ropes. Elise’s green sleeves unravelled in hundreds of shooting vines. They flew like bullets grabbing the power thieves. They stuck where they hit, like invasive plants. The vines wrapped the power thieves up, cocoon-like, from mouth to foot.
There was a flash by Kemsit. She leaped, a pile of chains abandoned at her feet, and slid on her belly as a snake. She swooshed right past Lil’Mon and under Elise’s dress. Elise’s petticoats flew up and a birdcage shape came into view. Elise’s pantaloons were extremely lacy. I looked away then, my cheeks blazing with embarrassment. But now I knew what Kemsit was doing. Hanging by an improvised liana sheath, on Elise’s hip, was the axe Alpheus had left planted in the Oracle’s floor.
All round us the power thieves dropped to the floor, but more kept coming.
With all this going on, I had missed my own liberation.
Lil’Mon danced in sand, getting some in everyone’s eyes. The ghost dragged his hood lower. He pulled a string on the side of his neck. The sand blasted his limbs, fighting his every move. He resisted. Deliberately, he knotted the hood over his face and crooked his head to the side, like I had seen Baas do, like countless blind people did every day, listening for every sound. He unhooked a simple woodcutter’s hatchet from his belt.
“Deafen the sucker!” Baas screamed.
“I know what I have to do!” Lil’Mon exclaimed. “Arrogant fanger”.
Baas, faster than ever, zoomed back and forth, in and out of vision. He was there just long enough to take a bite, rack a shoe-string sword through people or bounce up golem-formed walls. Suddenly he was behind me and kicked my back.
“Move, tuber-gut,” he cried.
I stumbled forth. Already he was smacking swords with the Oracle a few metres ahead. He snapped his killer teeth millimetres from the Oracle’s face. The Oracle didn’t break a sweat. He needed no weapon. Golem shields fanned round him. Like butterfly wings, they fluttered in and out of place: always stopping blows.
“They will skin you, vampire.” the Oracle threatened. “Your council won’t allow it.”
Kemsit yelled, axe high above her. It shone like a bolt of lightning in the night. My retinas burned as the light etched itself on them. I clutched my sunglasses as she rammed the aquarium. The strike shook her arms, making her teeth chatter. Her thousand plaits bounced up with the shock. The glass remained pristine.
I sprinted, eyes closed. This I could do. I had the strength that she didn’t. But it hurt. That flashing light coming out of the axe stabbed me. I whipped my head to the side, arm outstretched, protecting my eyes.
The floor became soft. Mud splattered as my foot stomped down. The golems were joining the party. Lil’Mon blasted his sand at our feet, but that couldn’t hold back the clay giants. He was too busy dealing with the ghost, anyway, to do a thorough job on the golems. The sandstorm wasn�
��t affecting the ghost, each grain slipped through the fabric of his cloak and came out his back without connecting. Yet, the ghost barely moved. He clapped his hands over his ears, as the sand whooshed a real storm in his eardrums. The hatchet’s head remained comfortably resting on the side of his leg. As long as he couldn’t see and couldn’t hear, he was lost.
A golem’s slimy paws grabbed onto Baas’s legs. He evaporated. The Oracle smiled. Baas popped up at his back, but the whole floor was ready for him. This time the tar swallowed him up to his waist. He tried the wall, but it ate his ankles. He couldn’t touch a surface. The Oracle didn’t have to pay any more attention to him than to a bug. He turned to Lil’Mon.
I seized the axe from Kemsit’s tiny hands. Snakes erupted from her hair, snapping. But immediately they relaxed. She recognised me.
“I can do that,” I said.
“Good. My God needs me.”
In seconds, she was by Lil’Mon’s side and fiercely fighting the Oracle. Sand had infiltrated his beard, polishing off its shine. Her cobras jumped to tarnish the rest. The Oracle drew a hand over his face, protecting his eyes from the venom. But, as he closed his own eyes, hard, solid, rock eyes opened on every wall, every stone and every surface and looked to us. Kemsit let out a revolted squeal. The Oracle could always see.
I tightened my grip on Alpheus’s axe. Breaking the aquarium wasn’t going to work, he would have managed by now, it was the lid we had to get off.
Baas popped in and out of existence, each time he appeared, he got swallowed by tar again. Lil’Mon’s perpetual halo of sand stopped the gunk in its tracks, so he was free. Kemsit avoided the ground altogether. To fight the Oracle, she jumped from one power thief cocoon to another, using them like stepping stones. Elise created them by the dozen.
I aimed the axe. I just needed it to get in the hair-line crack between the glass and the lid. One: I hoisted it, two: swung it backwards and— the axe stared down at me!
I dropped it in horror.
It clattered to the floor, the giant eye flashing like a miniature sun. I blinked back tears of pain. This wasn’t a golem’s bulbous stone eye. This wasn’t the Oracle’s work. Tar slurped at the handle, sticking to the blade. I leaped at the weapon before it got sucked in. I pulled: taffy threads breaking. No. The Oracle hadn’t corrupted it yet, but he wanted it.
This was the amulet against evil spirits. Alpheus had jammed it into his axe.
Elise bumped into my side. Her hundred vines shot in every direction. Perspiration beaded her hairline. The floor was scattered with squirming power thieves slowly sinking into the cement.
“Do not despair.” Her smile was dazzling.
I handed out the axe to her. She had the reach needed. “If this touches the Oracle, he’s gone,” I said.
She nodded. Her vines connected into an arm thick liana. It snaked round the handle, wielding it up in the air. The axe shone like a beacon over us.
I grabbed the lid of the tank. I was strong. My arms tensed. My legs stretched and muscles bunched. And I pushed. My elbows cracked. This was heavier than it should have been. I had to do it. Veins popped in my throat as I yelled for all my strength to collect.
The axe flew like a shooting star, a ray of stabbing light, aiming for the Oracle’s head. It whistled as it sped through the air. The Oracle’s gold armour reflected in the blade. His forehead was the target. Colour drained from his face. Thud!
The axe plunged deep into the clay block. The golem had stretched up at the last moment. The burning light vanished as it sank in. Only the handle stuck out.
“NOOOO!” I yelled.
The lid popped free. Water splashed my eternally monstrous suit. Alpheus sloshed out. Tinkling metal clung to my foot. He opened a wide mouth but only bubbles of gooey substance came out. It glistened between his deadly fangs, pouring out of him. Whatever was in the vat was not water. It had been made to stop him from talking for as long as possible. I looked down and there was Bartholomew’s sword. They’d thrown it on the tank.
It was mine again.
I dropped down. Hand shaking, I touched the blade, stretching to get it closer.
No! It was Merlin’s turn to yell. That’s not for you! Don’t you dare!
The metal was cold, but only sharp on one edge. Did that make it more of a big knife than a sword? I wondered. It didn’t really matter.
Without me you will vanish. Do you realise? Merlin said. Not even a tiny reincarnation! You are nothing. An aberration. I am your soul, and the soul is the only eternal part of you! Without me—
Without you everyone will be safe, I thought. The sword was in my lap. He yelled some more. I didn’t listen. I knew what I had to do. I tugged at Elise’s dress.
“Hey, thanks for everything. It was fun. And, if you can do something for the living: keep an eye out for Sedan Yildiz and Ina Ni Luh Pande, they’ve been amazing.”
Her lips parted and she screamed. The vines flopped to the floor, and her fingers were outstretched rescuing vessels. Too late. The blade bit into my stomach. Her fingertips connected with my shoulders. Sluggish black blood poured out of my gut. It didn’t hurt. It felt cold, like ice crystallising inside. My ears rang with Merlin’s scream. All round us everything collapsed.
The golems froze. The Oracle blinked in surprise. Lil’Mon’s sand collected round him. Kemsit flicked her hair, twirling to understand what caused the fuss. Baas solidified back into a person, once again able to bounce round. The power thieves stopped. Their hoods turned to me. Everyone except the ghost.
The ghost threw himself at Baas. His head was still wrapped like an airmail parcel, but he knew exactly where to go. Baas backpedalled in shock. His reflexes took over. His rapier moved almost against his will. It connected. A shred of cape flew in the air. The wound glistened like silver. A cut chain link flew out. The ghost clutched his arm. Handcuffs dropped to the floor ... and the ghost fled.
Everything slowed down. The dark green cape flapped round the ghost’s ankles, clapping noisily, flap, clap, clap, until he disappeared. Everyone’s movements were in stop motion.
Kemsit’s eyes enlarged, her nose wrinkled, eyes crinkled and furrows formed on her skin as it turned furiously red. Each of her stomps sent a tremor through the ground. Her neck crumpled into her shoulders as she brought her feet up, swinging her arms with determination. She kicked my leg. It moved, but I barely felt a thing.
The Oracle hoisted the block with Alpheus’s axe onto his shoulder. The handle made it so easy. He took a sweeping look over the scene.
“I guess the revolution will wait,” he said, and turned his back on us, walking away.
The fight was over. We won.
I shivered. Was it winter suddenly? My toes were numb. I was so cold. Elise held my hands. She was like fire to frostbite. It was burning agony. Merlin’s scream sounded quieter and quieter. I hoped my cousin got into med school. Whatever he did, I was sure he intended to help people. I hoped it worked out.
You will pay, Merlin raged. But already his voice was a whisper.
A tear dropped down my cheek. It wasn’t mine. Lil’Mon’s face appeared. It was funny, all upside down. Was he smiling? The slant of his lips looked wrong. Oh no. It was a grimace to hold back the flood. It rained down from his eyes.
“Fight it, dumb-dumb!” Kemsit yelled.
“Your job’s not done,” Baas whispered, suddenly here too. “Because if the Oracle’s two lies were that Elise hates you and the power thieves were after revenge, then ... then the truth must be your father is alive. And we both know what that means. We’ve got a hell of a welcome party to throw him, Tosho ...”
I gaped. The low blow was so typical of Baas. I wanted to fight. It almost could have done the trick. But there was nothing to hold onto anymore. It was too late. There was something so ironic about all this that I smiled. I could only do so much to help the cause. But the world was in good hands. The best of hands. I didn’t have the strength to answer. Everything was blurry now. Something was pul
ling at my head as if a bath plug had been there, right at the top of my skull. Already, there was a tug on the chain.
Tug. Tug. Tug. Pop.
With Merlin, I drained out.
Chapter 29
The Court Case
The Little Monarch stood straight, camped firmly on his stick legs. He had never looked so determined. Worshipers hurried about, fastening the ceremonial shendyt at his waist and lion skin over his shoulders. A high priestess adorned his beetle tattoos with a few touches of gold leaf and ground turquoise so each wore the royal emblems. The high priest applied the eye coal. Millenniums had gone by without a trace of any of them, but recently they’d felt the pull, the need to gather by his side. His sceptre shone once again in his hand. The halo had grown back round his head. But his eyebrows frowned, and anger pinched his lips.
“What are you blaspheming about, Baas? Of course I will interfere in your favour!”
His arms flayed and Baas smiled, half amused, half annoyed.
“By Isis, I am the God of Children! I am the Children’s League just as much as you or Elise. All the Egyptian princes slaughtered, poisoned, stabbed, tortured and quartered in the name of sovereignty pulse in my veins. I swore, as one of the spirits of the shadow corridor welcoming committee, that I would look after all murdered children and teenagers, and that is what I will do! Now, stand down.”
Elise’s fingers closed over Baas’s arm before he complained again. A beautiful pearl shone round her neck. She never took it off. She could have used it already, talked to her mother once more, but then she would have nothing of hers anymore. It was a dilemma she hadn’t quite resolved yet. It wasn’t as if there was any hurry.
She pulled Baas down a few steps. The pyramid had grown bigger and the ancient splendour was back. A water-lily pond with a fountain glistened at the entrance. It was big enough that the Styx, in an atmospheric diving suit filled with her own waters, could lounge in it without feeling overshadowed by the floating plants.
The eating tables did not need to be removed to make space anymore. They remained permanently covered with the most exquisite delicacies known in the Ptolemaic period. Exquisite tapestries and animal skins covered everything in an abundance of luxury. Kemsit and Alpheus whispered by the buffet. His immaculate mane matched his toga. For the occasion, he had left his military skirt behind for the floor-length robe, and heads turned.
